Pay-As-You-Throw (PAYT) tariff schemes, in which households pay based on their waste generation, are proposed as solutions to the growing worldwide challenge of municipal solid waste management. However, public acceptance of such schemes remains low. Using a one-factor between-subject experimental survey design with 620 participants, we test the effects of environmental and accountability appeals and of individual characteristics in shaping preferences for a proposed PAYT scheme in Grenoble, France. We find a positive effect of the accountability appeal and no effect of the environmental appeal on preference for the PAYT scheme compared to a fixed-fee scheme. Additional analyses suggest that accountability appeals are particularly effective for individuals with below-median age, above-median income, and at least a master’s degree, indicating that policymakers should target younger and educated citizens with these appeals in PAYT campaigns. Future research could test the applicability of these findings in other settings and for other waste-related interventions.

This study investigates the causal effects of highlighting municipal climate protection leadership on citizens' pro-climate activities, as reflected by their stated willingness-to-pay to offset their carbon footprint (WTPO). It further examines whether the effects of receiving information about municipal climate protection leadership on citizens' WTPO vary by socio-demographic characteristics. The empirical analysis employs a survey implemented in 2021 among citizens in the metropolitan area of Grenoble (France), the recipient of the 2022 European Green Capital Award. The survey included a randomized experiment where about half the participants were informed about Grenoble’s climate protection performance and the city’s recognition as European Green Capital whereas the other half did not receive this information nudge. Results based on estimating Tobit models suggest that participants who received this information intend to pay about 25% more to offset their carbon footprint than participants who did not receive this information. The findings further imply that this effect is stronger for younger and for less affluent participants in the sample. By signaling their climate protection leadership, municipalities may encourage unengaged citizens to participate in climate protection activities and motivate those already involved to increase their efforts.

Public acceptability appears an essential condition for the success of low-carbon transition policies. In this paper, we investigate the role of self-interest on citizens’ preferences for the distribution of costs and environmental benefits of energy efficiency policies. Using a discrete choice experiment on nationally representative household samples of Sweden, Italy, and the United Kingdom, we first investigate preferences for national burden-sharing rules and for the distribution of environmental benefits accruing primarily in rural and/or urban areas. We examine the role of self-interest and self-serving bias in a correlational manner by looking at the effects of income and location of residency on preferences for these policy attributes. Moreover, we investigate the effect of self-serving bias on preferences for burden-sharing rules in a causal manner by experimentally priming randomly assigned groups of participants to feel either rich or poor. Our results suggest that the accountability rule is the most popular and the equal-amount rule the least popular burden-sharing rule. Further, policies with environmental benefits accruing primarily in rural areas are least preferred. We find some evidence for self-interest, especially through our correlational approach. Finally, across country samples, our results reveal heterogeneity in preferences for policy attributes and in the prevalence of self-interest.

Legislative proposals intend to require that manufacturers provide consumers with information on product life-cycle impacts. Yet, little is known about how consumers value such life-cycle information and who would be most sensitive to it. In this paper, we employ data from a demographically representative household survey among the adult population in Germany (N = 404), which elicits individuals’ preferences for energy-related attributes of refrigerators. Based on mixed logit analysis of a discrete choice experiment, we find that consumers, on average, dislike refrigerators with much higher embodied energy, value the highest energy class, and prefer refrigerators with longer warranty periods. Latent class models distinguish three consumer classes: 'price sensitives' (36%), 'quality seekers' (24%) and 'energy savers' (40%). 'Energy savers' are characterized by a higher environmental identity, energy literacy, and more patience than the other classes. Rating scales reveal that consumers consider life-cycle properties with direct, private benefits much more strongly than properties with mainly indirect, social benefits. Results from ordered logit models suggest that women with more patience and high environmental identity consider all life-cycle properties more strongly, while durability appears to also be valued more by low-income and more energy literate consumers. The results support ongoing policy initiatives that require the provision of life-cycle information and call for instruments to help consumers select appliances based on life-cycle costs.

Leading energy-economic models used for policy assessment employ implicit discount rates (IDRs) to model household energy efficiency technology adoption, typically assuming identical IDRs across households and countries. To help modelers and policy-makers get tangible insights about the IDR, we empirically analyze the relations among key factors underlying the IDR and socio-demographic characteristics based on large-scale demographically representative household surveys in eight EU countries. These factors include behavioral parameters (time preferences, risk aversion, loss aversion, present bias), environmental identity, preferences for adhering to social norms, and access to capital. The findings suggest that these factors vary by country and socio-demographic characteristics. Notably, higher age, higher income and higher education of individuals typically imply a lower IDR, ceteris paribus. Policy-makers may rely on the results to tailor policy interventions towards socio-economic groups. For example, results on time discounting suggest that policies such as rebates or loans should target low-education individuals. Results on risk aversion suggest that policies such as warranties or energy performance contracting should target older and low-education individuals and low-income households. Finally, policies addressing lack of access to capital such as grants and soft loans appear most effective for younger, low-education individuals and single, low-income, non-urban households.

We revisit the issue of the energy efficiency (EE) gap by explicitly acknowledging the two-sided nature of the rental housing market and two-sided asymmetries of information between tenants and landlords. Employing a theoretical matching model, we show that Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) that signal a dwelling’s energy performance induce optimal EE investments by landlords only if tenants pay their energy expenditures in full. When landlords pay part of the energy expenditures, they seek tenants who will conserve energy. Our model shows that asymmetry of information over tenant characteristics results in suboptimally low investments in EE. This may even render EPCs counterproductive. As a remedy, we show that tenant-side signaling needs to be rolled out jointly with EPCs and may even be sufficient when contracts include energy expenditures. Data from an original survey provides support for these insights and suggests that information on the tenants’ side contributes to more EE investment.